If the other driver has no insurance, then we turn to our client’s uninsured or, if the other driver doesn’t have enough insurance, underinsured motorist’s coverage. It’s called UM and UIM, and those are the coverages that you as a driver purchase as a part of your insurance in order to protect yourself against exactly that situation.
Q: If I’m found to be partially at fault and we’re pursuing my uninsured motorists’ insurance company, could there be a situation where my own insurance company is are arguing that I was 51% at fault so they don’t have to pay?
Absolutely. Your uninsured or underinsured motorists’ coverage steps into the shoes of the other driver and the same defenses that would have been available to the other parties are available to your uninsured and underinsured carrier.
They will claim the same sort of defenses: That you ran the red light, that you should have yielded, all of the things that can go into something like that they will continue to claim and they will make all of those same defenses.
Interestingly, under those circumstances, there will be times where the individual has more than one lawyer involved in the case. For example, you might have a lawyer against your own insurance company on the underinsured claim, but another on behalf of them in terms of recovering medical payments coverage. You can wind up with some strange conflicts of interest, but it does happen, and the lawyers tend to sort those things out.
